Due to Designaknit's advanced copy protection, Wine does not recognize the CD-ROM-dongle, so DAK cannot be launched on Linux systems, unless you have created a local install, which does not require access to the CD-ROM.

If you want to run DAK on Linux you have three options:

create a local install on Linux using Wine.

use the same install of DAK on both Windows and Linux (on a dual boot machine)

migrate (copy) your local install from Windows to Linux/Wine.

This is a step-by-step tutorial for the latter two options.
(We have not tried out the first option yet)

You need to create a local install of DAK on a Windows-box first.
When you launch DAK without the CD-ROM inserted, it provides you with a lock number. You can then contact Softbyte, and ask them for a key required to create a local install.

You need to have Wine 0.9.46 installed on your Linux system. We have tried out several versions of Wine, and most of them do not work with DK7. In most cases the software works fine, but the bidirectional communication with the knitting machine via USB/serial port fails.
In our case Wine 0.9.46 worked just fine.

Copy the complete DAK directory into your Wine .drive_c folder. Alternatively you may grant Wine access to the volume where Designaknit was installed. Note that Wine needs write permissions to make this work. If you are afraid to mess up your windows install, create a backup first!

Configure WINE to emulate the correct Windows version

Configure the (virtual) volumes with the correct volume serial numbers. (you can do this using winecfg or by creating a .windows-serial file inside the volume root directory by hand)

You might want to migrate your original Linux/Wine install of DAK to a Windows-box one day. To achieve this, you would need to change the actual serial numbers of the hard drive, to match those used by your Wine install. Make sure to backup everything before messing with your hard disk!